Leon Noble

Profile

Summary

I am a first-year PhD student at the Sustainability Research Institute (University of Leeds), funded by the ESRC White Rose Doctoral Training Partnership.

My academic background is a bit unconventional — I started in Philosophy, moved into Public Health, and now find my place in Environmental Studies. However, Philosophy and Public Health have been valuable stages of my academic journey providing interconnected ways of thinking — one providing a foundation in ethics and reasoning, the other in complex systems and social realities — both shaping how I now approach the complex challenge of investigating the impacts of food system transformation where questions of equity, sustainability, and transformation converge.

Motivation

For my Master’s dissertation, I explored UK consumer perceptions of cultivated meat. While I found that providing positive information could slightly improve attitudes, most people remained unaware of the ethical, environmental, and health potential of alternative proteins.

Before starting my PhD, I spent three years working as a research assistant on complex health intervention studies. It gave me hands-on experience across the research cycle — from design to data collection to analysis and reporting — and sharpened my interest in complex social science research.

After discovering how much I enjoyed integrating social and ecological perspectives during my Master’s research, I was eager to return to alternative protein research with a broader, more interdisciplinary lens. With the support of the Good Food Institute Europe, I’m now exploring the broader social, economic, and environmental implications of adopting more alternative protein sources — and what this transition could mean for people, land, and life on the planet.

Research interests

Alternative proteins (APs) - plant-based, cultivated, and fermented food products - represent a promising alternative to the environmental pressures and inefficiencies of conventional animal agriculture. However, most research so far has been focused on the technical development of alternative proteins or life cycle assessments of specific products leaving the social, cultural, economic, and environmental transformations resulting from a wide-scale shift to Alternative Proteins understudied.

Qualifications

• BA Philosophy
• MSc Nutrition, Physical Activity and Public Health

Research groups and institutes

• Sustainability Research Institute
• Sustainable Food Systems